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Communication and stigma with Sydney O'Shea on Tuesday's Access Utah

A round table discussion will be held by the USDA and local leaders on April 11th
USDA.gov

Utah State University Assistant Professor of Communication Studies Sydney O’Shay is studying the way communication impacts substance addiction and, more specifically, how family members are affected by the social stigmas associated with substance abuse. In recent months, Professor O’Shay has seen her research published in a top-ranked journal in her field and received an award to develop a scale to measure how individuals can use communication strategies to navigate stigma.

Sydney O’Shay received her PhD from Wayne State University in 2021. Her research focuses on the construction of stigma communication in healthcare and family contexts. Her work has been recognized with the Inclusive Scholarship Award (2022) from the Health Communication Interest Group of the Central States Communication Association and has been published in journals such as Health Communication, the Journal of International Crisis and Risk Communication, Communication Studies, and New Media & Society, among others.

Tom Williams worked as a part-time UPR announcer for a few years and joined Utah Public Radio full-time in 1996. He is a proud graduate of Uintah High School in Vernal and Utah State University (B. A. in Liberal Arts and Master of Business Administration.) He grew up in a family that regularly discussed everything from opera to religion to politics. He is interested in just about everything and loves to engage people in conversation, so you could say he has found the perfect job as host “Access Utah.” He and his wife Becky, live in Logan.